1. Field of the Invention
The disclosures herein generally relate to an image forming apparatus, an image forming system, an image forming method and a printing method of printed matter.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image forming apparatuses include an ink-jet type image forming apparatus, having advantages in miniaturization and low-noise. In the ink-jet type image forming method, droplets of ink are discharged on a recording medium, to form an image on a surface of the recording medium.
Japanese Published Patent Application No. H10-226055 discloses an ink-jet recording apparatus (image forming apparatus), which distinguishes, when applying process liquid including an ingredient which insolubilizes or agglutinates an ingredient in ink, between a preprocess of discharging the process liquid onto the recording medium previously and discharging the ink, and a postprocess of discharging the ink onto the recording medium and then discharging the process liquid, and reduces difference between quality levels of the preprocessed part and the postprocessed part on the recording medium.
In the method disclosed in Japanese Published Patent Application No. H10-226055, on the surface of the recording medium the process liquid including an ingredient for insolubilizing or agglutinating is applied. However, there is a problem that when the surface of the recording medium, on which an image is formed, is grazed by another object (for example, another recording medium), the image on the recording medium may be peeled.